Self-voting

In many situations players have either emotionally or tactically self-voted, bringing them closer to elimination, or self-hammered, casting the final vote to eliminate themselves.

This play is seen as highly controversial.

Emotional self-voting

Oftentimes players, believing their elimination to be inevitable, or losing interest in the game, will self-vote in frustration to further their elimination.

As town

Theoretically, furthering one's own elimination as town is a strictly anti-town move. As the player is the only confirmed town they know, eliminating anyone else is superior if only for the chance at eliminating scum. As such, self-voting as town is often frowned upon.

As scum

Similarly, as mafia need more mafia members alive to win, a mafia member voting themselves is anti-scum in most scenarios in which their elimination can be avoided.

Tactical self-voting

As scum

Due to the prevalence of townies self-voting in frustration, many scum players have faked frustration and self-voted as an Appeal to Emotion, in order to be read as genuine frustrated town. This tactic has led to self-voting being regarded as a common scumtell.

As town

Fong's Gambit is a strategy in which a town player, recognizing that self-voting is seen as a scumtell, self-votes to evaluate the reactions of other players, and hopefully coax scum into opportunistically voting them. This play was popularized by the IRC Channel #mafia user fong.

As it is a variation of Slayer's Gambit, in which a town player purposefully acts scummy to gauge reactions, the value of this gambit is also debated.

Self-hammering

While self-voting is generally highly controversial, the practice of tactically self-hammering is seen as beneficial in niche scenarios.

As scum

If a scum player strongly believes their elimination to be inevitable, it can be effective to self-hammer in order to sow confusion and send the game into the Night phase. This can:

• Cut off further discussion and information, reducing town Power Roles' abilities to plan for the night.
• Unexpectedly cut off the input of whomever is about to be nightkilled.
• Reduce potential associations between the eliminated and the remaining mafia members.
• Hamper Vote Count Analysis and prevent town's ability to generate reads on what would be another player's hammering vote.

As town

In any case in which another elimination is still possible, it is almost always anti-town to self-hammer. However, if the day's deadline is imminent, a No Elimination would be statistically worse for town, and no other options are available, it can be appropriate for the player to self-hammer, providing the town with some information from that day, and preventing their likely elimination on future days.

In some setups, such as Vote for Town Mafia, the players are voting for someone that they believe to be town, rather than someone that they believe to be scum. In this situation it's common for townies to self-hammer, because they know their own alignment and thus that the vote will be beneficial for them. (In fact, the self-vote is normally taken into account when balancing this sort of setup; late in the game, town might not have the numbers to get a vote through otherwise.)

Common tell

While this practice is commonly seen as scum-indicative, no data has been compiled on the actual effectiveness of self-voting as a towntell or a scumtell. The lack of strong evidence one way or the other has led some players to believe that voting for self-voters is actually just a Policy Elimination for anti-town behavior.